Banoffe pie..

[yogi]

My first real job was a "dummy boy" in an envelope factory. It was my duty to hand cut sample envelopes (called dummies) for potential customers. Unfortunately, it was a family owned business and somebody would have had to die for me to work my way up the ladder. So I left after a year and spent the next 36 at an electronics company called Motorola.

[tomsk]

America is a magnificent Country..I love the accents!
What were you doing at Motorola please?

[yogi]

Most of those years I was an electronics technician who tested radio modules and analyzed any defects down to the component level. I then moved on to the instrument lab where we did calibration and maintenance of the factory equipment used in manufacturing our radio products. The last years of my employment I was part of the IT group and did desktop computer support and first line network administration. About ten years before what would have been my normal retirement, they moved all manufacturing out of the country to places that offered cheap labor. I could not find a job during that time so that I considered myself retiring early.

[tomsk]

That sounds interesting,
you must've liked it being there so long...?

[yogi]

When I hired into Motorola the work ethic was such that it was expected to be employed by your chosen company as long as you did your job and stayed healthy. By the time half my career was over, ideas about staying with a single employer had changed dramatically. This was particularly true in the high tech constantly changing telecommunications industry. I absolutely loved being on the cutting edge of technology. Motorola invented the cell phone and I was part of that. A very small part, but still, I was there when and as it happened. Yes, those were exciting times and I did enjoy going to work most days. But, alas, economic realities changed the whole experience.

[tomsk]

Sounds really interesting,
better than a desk job..

[yogi]

I spent a lot of time maintaining remote servers as well as writing code for the computers in the test equipment. All of that involves sitting and watching a monitor screen. In fact I think some of the circulation problems I have today are a direct result of all that sitting. One of the amazing aspects of the job was to perform backups and installations of new software on huge computer systems that were not as good as the one you are using today. It would take hours to perform some data transfers. I had to be nearby in case something went wrong and was getting paid a very high price just to watch lights blink.